We’re finally back at school. Actually, I’m quite astonished that we got as much done this week as we did. We got back around midnight Sunday night, and started into school right away on Monday. Well…Monday afternoon. I’m not that strict.
You might be surprised that school is actually sanity for us. On the way back, both Knut and I made comments that we couldn’t wait to get the kids back to school. They behave so much better when there’s that structure. Their play is so much more imaginative when they have that little jump start. It was good that we didn’t do school on vacation, because vacation is a necessary part of life as well. It’s so good to get back, though!
We had the astonishing phenomenon this week on getting everything done fully on each day that it was supposed to get done on. What I mean is that history wasn’t put off for the day, and clumped together in the next. Read-alouds, which notoriously gets forgotten in our house, was done diligently each day. The big reason for this is that I switched the schedule for the day up. We now do our sit down reading at the beginning of the day, usually during Solveig’s morning feeding when I’m sitting down anyway. The boys are usually happy that time in the morning.
We finish our reading first, which is a chapter from Exodus, our devotional
After that she does her handwriting, spelling and math at the table while I get chores done, and Solveig is usually asleep by then.
We try to squeeze in piano practice before Elias goes down for his afternoon nap. I’ve learned this week that I actually have to stand over her shoulder and make her practice each song, as I’ve recently realized that she just breezes past the new songs, does them incorrectly, and then goes back to the older, easier songs, and does those for the rest of the 30 minutes. So I now stay in the living room with her and be annoying. I hate being annoying. I’m trying so hard to say positive things as often as humanly possible so I’m not just in there picking on her. It’s tough for kids to be found out, though, that they weren’t doing their best. A little bad attitude goes with it. I know that from experience.
She still likes to play on her own time, just for fun, so I still rest assured that I have not killed her love for music like I didn’t kill her love for poetry. Even in things that she enjoys, it’s good to require her best.
She’s doing fabulously in Chinese. I think this is due to the fact that instead of doing one lesson a few times a week, I’m having her do 2 lessons a day diligently. It only adds up to 30 minutes or so, sometimes less. Still, her scores are going up and up.
I don’t know why I continually feel the need to defend myself on why I continually push Silje. No one has attacked me on this point. Still, neither Knut nor I am content to let her “coast.” We could just let her make the status quo, but the status quo means nothing. I feel that as her teacher, it’s my job to recognize where she’s at, and guide her to the next level. It doesn’t matter if that level is 1st grade or 5th grade. I don’t expect her to be a genius, but I do expect her to keep her brain sharpened.
At one point she was rolling her eyes at when I noticed she was getting worse and worse in the subject of Chinese and “made” her practice more, not less because she was losing interest. This week I’ve seen her jump up in down with delight over the fact that she nearly got 100% on the listening section, which is often her least favorite. Once again she can’t wait to get to that part of the school day. All because I made her practice more when she started losing interest, not less. I don’t get to see that joy in her without pushing her a little, so it encourages me to continue to push.
This is our last full week of 1st grade math, as she only has 2 more days of it next week. I’ve gotten the 2nd grade math all ready to seamlessly move into it on Wednesday next week. She’s so excited about this, and is quite proud of herself.
David has taken over the white board with his handwriting practice (we have the handwriting lines wipe-able poster taped on there pretty good), so we’ve had to start using the black board on the opposite side for Silje’s grammar lessons. Sometimes we practice dictation instead, and I have her write the sentences down onto notebook paper. She was so delighted to use chalk that she asked if she could play with it after school, and pretend to be teacher to her dolls.
I told her that Elias might like being taught too. We were surprised a week or so ago when we realized that he knew most of his letters. We had no idea he had been learning them. He just showed us a book and was pointing to letters one by one and naming them for us. So Silje “played” school with Elias one evening. I know alphabet is spelled wrong in the picture. Don’t worry. It’s now written correctly in the personal dictionary she keeps. She just loved being the teacher for Elias!
Melissa says
March 26, 2011 at 4:57 amI love these peeks into your days! Keep up the good work!